**2. Brazilian sugarcane industry in brief and environmental issues**

Brazilian agribusiness is the strongest arm of its whole economy. The contribution from sugarcane business and derived products is outstanding for local consumption and exportation, financial incomes and, in our view, overcoming concurrent activities such as soy, corn and coffee commodities. About 1 m<sup>3</sup> of sugarcane juice may contain around 200 kg of sucrose, easily splitable into their valuable counterparts: glucose and fructose. These monosaccharides are equally and promptly hydrolyzed into the same monosaccharides by *Saccharomyces* spp. hyperactive yeast cell wall-bound invertase, capable to quickly pave the metabolic pathway of this precious aldo- and keto-aldoses to ethanol and other useful fuels.

Brazil, secondly followed by India, is the world leading processing sugarcane to first generation ethanol, table sugar and other goods as corroborated by its huge year-crop (2016–2017) in the range of 657.2 million tons with a final production of 11 billion liters of anhydrous ethanol and around 39 million ton of table sugar (sucrose) [9]. It is a good time to focus on the Brazilian sustainability scenario and actors: economically feasibility, environmentally correctness and social fairness. There are gladness and sadness criticisms from both sugar mills entrepreneurs and capitalism lovers versus poorer workers at cane plantations, respectively. Let us emphasize the thoughts and opinions from the closer national teacher and researcher on environmental sciences, recalled his graduation title as a social scientist, too—Prof. Dr. Valdir Fernandes [10]. His comments and Strengths, Weaknesses Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) guidelines were built in a partnership with other three other publication colleagues and was summarized below:

**3. Structure of lignohemicellulosic biomass**

compounds, which are called extractives.

**Figure 1.** General ligno(hemi)cellulose structure of the plant cell wall.

and intensive production.

Cellulosic materials are the most abundant renewable polymer resource available in nature as the main component of plant cell walls, which in turn is subdivided into primary wall and secondary parts. Unlike other homopolysaccharides encountered anywhere, cellulose occurs in close association with hemicelluloses and lignin, then named ligno(hemi)cellulose or shortly, L(h)C (**Figure 1**). Together, these three biomolecules are the main components of plant biomasses corresponding, respectively, as 40–60% for cellulose, 20–40% for hemicelluloses and 10–25% for lignin in any L(h)C biomass [11]. The distribution of cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin varies considerably among cell wall layers. L(h)C biomass also can contain some pectin and xyloglucan along with minor amounts of minerals (ash) and various other

Sugar Versatility—Chemical and Bioprocessing of Many Phytobiomass Polysaccharides Using…

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.75229

245

Exceptions for this statement seldom occur in the plant kingdom but is the case of cotton caps and kapok ripen fruits where cellulose fibers are almost pure, meaning free of hemicellulose and lignin. Mention to some polysaccharide bacterial anabolism is mandatory here: some species of acetogenic bacteria, specially species such as *Gluconacetobacter xylinus*, formerly known as *Acetobacter xylinum* and since reclassified as *Komagataeibacter xylinus* [12], biosynthesize effectively pure cellulose ribbons of special architecture as soft biofilm gels. There are now a plenty of medical and other biotechnological applications for this noble cellulose occurrence

Southeastern Asian countries (Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia) consume it as appreciated food known as "nata-de-coco". We have been consolidating other biotech products, one of them its covalently died derivative (Remazol Brilliant Blue R (RBB)-bacterial cellulose) for cellulolytic enzymes detection and measuring [13], following our pioneering

(a) Brazil is committed from many decades ago with sugarcane ethanol as a mandatory surrogate for petrochemical derived fuels; (b) given the huge figures for production and processing, when examining the sustainability, it is necessary to build tools which allow to assess an integrated conception of the sugarcane matter, prospects, goals and subjects, about everything to help and to influence decision-makers to establish public policies for a sustainable development; (c) the complexity may be captured from economic and social indicators without no reduction in the significance of each system component; (d) taking the State of São Paulo—the major Brazilian producer and more developed state federation unit—and the trustable indicators raised by its Environmental Secretariat—sounded as one pertinent strategy for the current evaluation; (e) water supply and its quality regarding environmental implications is a valuable cornerstone; (f) the evaluation of environmental indicators encompasses the application of extensive interviews allied to experts workshop pointing out to a set of benchmarks; in the present case, 16 respectable experts were involved. These interviews established three main focus: water, soil and atmosphere. Each focus considering, respectively, 11, 12 and 2 relevant aspects/opinions input. As illustrative examples, reduce availability, oxygen-deprivation as biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) parameters, eutrophication of surface sheets by NPK and respective leaching intensity in the case of water, loss of soil nutrients nitrification and acidification by low-pH vinasse, microbiota flora reduction for the soil focus and some possibly unchanged/ unchangeable indicators such as photochemical formation of tropospheric ozone and atmospheric acidification (permanent greenhouse gases release). Discussions and conclusions drawn for other mentioned topics in water and soil derived from the expert's team suggested opinions and additions. A strengths /weaknesses/opportunities and threats, namely, a SWOT analysis was built. (g) conclusively, a better guide for the people taking decisions sugarcane industrial managers, union leaders, politicians, governmental authorities in agricultural, health, economic and social fields—all them committed with the whole society benefits on safety, welfare and progress—is to consider and refine, *inter allia*, environmental indicators to feed the discussion and legal decisions to support the so needed sustainability in the giant sugarcane business.

To the authors understanding this remarkable contribution of this environmentally proactive scientists quartet from USP—University of São Paulo, UTFPR—Federal Technological University of Paraná and UFPE—Federal University of Pernambuco (prudly and proudly Brazilian scientists!) deserves a complete reading of their corresponding 27 pages full report for any reader interested in the profits and negative implications of any giant agribusiness as well as other related industrial and highly polluting factories on commodities (e.g., pulp/ paper, timber/saw mills).
